Jul. 17, 2013

Mike Duggan holds a press conference to announce he will not appeal the court's decision and will drop out from the Detroit mayoral race at his Detroit campaign headquarters on June 19. / Kathleen Galligan/Detroit Free Press

Written by

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

The impact of an emergency manager on Detroit’s mayoral race took a new twist today as labor activist Robert Davis released e-mails from top aides to Gov. Rick Snyder that he says show that candidate Mike Duggan played a role in the selection process that resulted with Kevyn Orr’s appointment.

It was Davis’ latest salvo against Duggan, who is trying to become mayor of Detroit through a write-in campaign.

Davis, who works with the city’s largest labor union — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 25 — supported mayoral candidate Tom Barrow’s challenge that Duggan hadn’t lived in the city for a year the day he turned in campaign signatures to make the Aug. 6 ballot. A Wayne County judge agreed.

Duggan dismissed any hint today that his involvement with the Snyder administration was anything other than to tell Snyder and his staff that Detroit didn’t need an emergency manager and that it would be a mistake to appoint one before the city could elect a mayor capable of fixing the city without a takeover.

“I tried very hard to convince the governor’s people not to appoint an emergency manager,” Duggan told the Free Press. “You see what influence I had. They ignored me.”

Davis provided the e-mails to the Free Press today. They were released as part of a lawsuit he filed against the Snyder administration, alleging that it violated the state’s open meetings laws in recruiting and selecting an emergency manager. State officials have turned over some e-mails and documents an Ingham County judge ordered released to Davis.

One e-mail from top Snyder adviser Rich Baird, who played a major role in the emergency manager selection, indicates that Baird had dinner with Duggan on Feb. 5. The e-mail appears to be to Kevyn Orr, more than a month before he was chosen as Detroit’s emergency manager, Davis said.

“Mike has made a reasoned, logical and impassioned plea to defer any appointment of an EFM until after the election in November,” the e-mail says. “He is concerned that an EFM will make too many decisions to resolve the short-term crisis in Detroit without regard to the long term (such as hiring a police chief, consolidating operations under an authority, not prioritizing city services in the same way as a strong mayor would, etc.).”

(Page 2 of 3)

A second e-mail, to Baird from state Treasurer Andy Dillon, references Duggan telling state officials that another candidate for the emergency manager job, whose name was redacted in the documents Davis released, shouldn’t be eligible for the job, but “there is a role for him” in the effort to turn around Detroit.

Orr was appointed March 25.

Davis insisted Wednesday that the documents are a smoking gun.

“The e-mails show (Duggan) is in bed with the Republican governor and these ultraconservatives who are stripping the city of its resources and the right to vote,” said Davis, who has filed multiple lawsuits opposing state intervention in the city. Duggan “was in the back room cutting a deal for the EM based on his agenda for the city.”

Duggan, a former CEO for the Detroit Medical Center, said the e-mails show no such thing. “What this confirms,” he said, “is that I was lobbying against an emergency manager all along.”

Numerous community leaders were tapped for discussions with Snyder staffers as the state reviewed Detroit’s troubled finances and prepared for a possible emergency manager appointment. They included some of the city’s most prominent pastors and political leaders, including City Council members, state lawmakers and representatives of Mayor Dave Bing. The Snyder administration said it was gathering input from stakeholders in the community.

Davis said other documents he has reviewed that the state released as part of the lawsuit have not shown direct contact between the Snyder administration and any other current candidate for mayor besides Duggan.

Candidates Lisa Howze, a CPA and former state representative, and Barrow, an accountant, said they were never contacted by the state for input on the emergency manager selection process. Candidate Krystal Crittendon also said state officials never contacted her to discuss the city's finances or Orr’s appointment before it was announced.

Duggan said today that he was sure the Snyder administration spoke with Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, a former Detroit police chief who’s also running for mayor.

That Duggan would be contacted for input didn’t surprise political analyst and pollster Eric Foster, given what Foster said is a long-standing friendship between Duggan and Dillon, the state treasurer.

He said that given Duggan’s political and business background, state officials would have been “comfortable that he could transition the city out of the control of an emergency manager” once Orr’s tenure was over in September 2014 should Duggan become mayor. Foster was one of those invited to community meetings and is now working with mayoral candidate Fred Durhal Jr.

If the governor’s staff hadn’t approached prominent leaders such as Duggan and Napoleon, “I would not have had the initial trust I had going in” about the state’s appointment of an emergency manager, Foster said, “but what I still think is missing is the continual, direct, open communication about the details.”

Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said state officials reached out to leaders for input on the city’s financial emergency and possible candidates. She declined to reveal details about the discussions or with whom they were held.